Obama Hands Corrupt Ukraine Another Billion US Dollars – OpEd

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One of the downsides of the US “regime change” business is that when you break it, you often have to buy it. It’s all fun and games when you wander through the streets of Kiev with a bag of cookies encouraging the people to overthrow their government, or when you appear on stage before a riotous mob and alongside avowed national-socialists violently overthrowing a democratically-elected government.

What gets messy is when you get your way, the old government is overthrown, your “guys” seize power, and it turns out corruption and economic mismanagement are worse than before the US-backed “liberation.”

So what do you do when interventions go badly? If you are the US government spending other people’s money, you simply escalate. In Libya and Iraq, that means going back in with US boots on the ground.

With Ukraine, it’s simply a matter of tossing another billion dollars into the burning wreck of a runaway train. So today the US announced that the US taxpayer would guarantee its third $1 billion dollar loan to the Ukrainian government.

US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, who played a key role in engineering the Maidan revolt in Ukraine, had this to say about spending more of other people’s money on the Ukrainian train wreck:

The guarantee sends a strong signal of the United States’ continued support for Ukraine as it pursues reforms that fulfill the Ukrainian people’s aspirations for a prosperous and democratic future.

What that means is anyone’s guess.

For his part, US-backed president Petro Poroshenko boasted back home that he was able to secure this extra billion dollars while meeting with President Obama in April. He said:

This bears testament to the fact that the United States and Ukraine are reliable strategic partners.

Careful there, Poroshenko. The US doesn’t have the best record when it comes to “strategic partners.” Ask Saddam, Gaddafi, Noriega, and so on…

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

2 thoughts on “Obama Hands Corrupt Ukraine Another Billion US Dollars – OpEd

  • June 4, 2016 at 12:12 pm
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    Congratualations eurasiareview! – Another low in your publishing record! Anybody who writes that you can overthrow a government by distributing a bag of cookies, must rely on cookies for his brain food. The Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity was as much an American plot as the American Revolution was a French plot. Or did the Americans revolt because the Marie Antoinette sent them brioches? “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” wrote Alexander Pope.

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  • June 5, 2016 at 7:53 am
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    Great article, Ron Paul institute. Ukraine is a basket case, and the US clearly wants it to remain a basket case. Monsanto still hopes that the EU will sign TTIP so they can then overrun the EU with GMO seeds and foods despite the exceptions of 18 of the countries against GMO seeds. The language was all muddled up enough to make that possible. If it doesn’t work, Monsanto hasn’t invested any money yet and Ukraine may still be able to lease fertile farmland to China – for a real income. Or export non GMO wheat to China and Central Asia. Also for some real income. The US oil and gas companies who wanted to frack and undercut Russian gas supply to the EU pulled out too: fracking, as it turned out, is way more expensive in Ukraine than in the US due to geological conditions. Which doesn’t leave Ukraine many ways out of its economic dilemma – since it cut all trade ties with Russia and the heavy industry in Donbas is in shambles. Which makes clear that the government is handing out bad loans. Clearly, the US taxpayers will be stuck with one more billion dollar debt to add on to the other $2b guaranteed loans to Ukraine.

    Beyond that, what it may mean is that Poroshenko will run to use that billion dollars to fight another war in Donbas still in the false hope of winning control of his country back. Surely, they didn’t hire Saakachvili for nothing: he also fought one of these extremely successful wars to win two now independent provinces back. Well, those provinces wouldn’t have won independence without Saakachvili’s war. Same will happen in Ukraine. The US military industrial sector will get another billion dollars. They won’t say no. The government and Congress will get its payday from them, which is how they make their money. And Obama will be praised for laundering one more billion of taxpayers’ money for private pockets.

    Brave new world.

    Reply

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